Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

There is a huge demand for multi-denominational secondary level schooling as well. That needs to be a priority, but it does not have to be at the expense of religious education. Instead, it should complement it by providing the choice that we are all talking about.

In the provision of a diverse form of education, we do not want to see a land grab by the State. A national takeover by the State of schools under church patronage is not something parents want. It would be very damaging to the education system in this country, which has stood us in good stead. In other jurisdictions with state-run primary and secondary schools, it seems that people try to get out of such systems because the standard is simply too low. The schools are not competitive and the standard of education suffers. We only have to look across the water to the UK to see what has happened, where people are getting children baptised and attending mass in a desperate attempt to get their children out of the state schools and into the church patronised schools because the latter are better. We need to acknowledge the quality we have here and do not throw it away in order to pander to some form of political correctness that does not reflect the wishes of parents or the needs of children. The quality of state-run schools is very questionable in other jurisdictions and we need to be wary of going down that road.

This is a very important debate. We need wide-ranging discussions with all of the stakeholders in education, including parents, the different institutions, teachers and teaching unions. We have to elevate parents to equal partners in this debate. Formal consultation is what is needed, or a national convention on education, as has been proposed by our spokesperson on education, Deputy Brian Hayes. If we go down the role of formalising the role of parents in that dialogue, we can come to a very successful outcome that will serve this country very well into the future. That is what this is all about.

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